“We’re going back to Le Chateau,” I mumbled at his chest. “We’re going to draw Danny away from these guys so that nobody else gets hurt. Le Chateau is so isolated and as far as the others are concerned, anywhere near Weston would be the last place that we’d go right now, so it seems like a good location.”
Silas nodded thoughtfully, the promise of a looming fight working to dampen his intense mood. He dug a hand into his pocket and pulled out a phone; it couldn’t possibly work anymore, not after being submerged in the water. He tossed it to the ground and reached for the pocket of my borrowed jeans. To his apparent surprise, the pocket was sewed shut—as though it was simply a decoration pocket. I could have told him that. He frowned, reaching behind me, his fingers skimming the back of my jeans, searching for another pocket. I froze, my breath halting in my chest. I could have told him that there were no pockets back there either, but I couldn’t seem to summon the words.
I also didn’t want to tell him where my phone was hidden.
His fingers skimmed further down, unnecessarily following the slight crease in my jeans at the tops of my thighs that hugged the curve of my butt. His hands ended up at my sides as he examined me carefully. He wasn’t searching for my phone anymore. He was searching for something in my eyes—some kind of telling tick in my expression. I had no idea what, but I couldn’t stand the intensity of it all. I lowered my eyes.
“Don’t.” The command was projected lowly. “You don’t hide from me. That’s not what you do.”
“What do I do?”
“You open up.” He pressed me back against the car, one of his legs edging between mine, his hands curling around the outsides of my thighs. “I press, and you let me in.”
“Maybe things have changed.” I didn’t want to acknowledge what was happening, but I knew… I was having trouble coming to terms with everything that he had done. I was having trouble reconciling it all in my head. I wanted to draw him close and shut him out all at once.
He had killed Gerald. He had almost killed Cabe. He had lied to us. He had tricked me.
“I’ve realised something.” His fingers twitched, tapping thoughtfully against my thighs, his eyes heavy on my face, his intensity weighing down on me. “I can’t pull you away from them. I can’t pull myself away from you. We’re connected, we’ll snap, and snapped, we’re no better than dead.”
“I know.”
“I meant what I said, before, angel. I won’t leave again. I won’t ever punish them for touching you.” He sucked in a breath, as though the admission had pained him. “That leniency doesn’t extend any further, though. You need to know that. If you’re ours, I’ll break the next person outside of us that touches you. I don’t mean I’ll break their fingers. I’m mean them. Their whole person. I’ll break their connection to this world.”
I could hardly breathe, and it wasn’t because of his violent threat. He was ready to commit to something that none of us had even properly agreed on. I had thought that I had been the strong one all of this time; the mature one, accepting the bond and moving forwards. I had been strong enough to realise that my expectations had been reversed—that the very unsettled nature of my bond had been the reason for my reluctance with the other three, and that my true feelings had been the jealousy, the need, and the vulnerability that I had been desperately ignoring for so long.
But of course… nobody was as strong as Silas.
While I had accepted the truth of everything that I had done and everything that I had felt, he was vowing to go against his very nature. He would share. He would allow a bond—something that he had no control over—to dictate his life. He would relinquish control. For us.
Things would never be the same again—not with him, or with the others. We had all done terrible things. I had stolen them, and they had each betrayed me in their own ways, with the exception of Quillan. But Quillan had his own issues; I was sure that the death of his previous girlfriend was a contributing factor, but I also knew that he was hanging onto some kind of misplaced sense of duty. He felt responsible for me, and that sense of responsibility warred directly with the non-platonic nature of the bond. We had all hurt each other, betrayed each other, lied and manipulated each other… but we kept finding our way back. We couldn’t help it.
“I’ll never leave again.” Silas delivered the promise to something deep inside me, his chest pressed to mine. I could feel the mesmerising skip of his heart and the regret that hovered over him… but I could also feel the solidness of his promise. He meant it. “I’m all in,” he whispered, shocking me further.